Mountain chickadee
Poecile gambeli
Bird
The chickadee of western montane conifer forest, told from its relatives by a white eyebrow stripe across the black cap. It gleans insects from conifer foliage all year, scatter-hoards seed into bark crevices and needle clusters and relies on spatial memory to recover it, and nests in cavities other birds have already made.
Plan for this species
Location-fit plant set for Chicago, IL: host and specialist plants first, then nectar, fruit, seed, foliage, and shelter plants that still fit the current and mid-century climate read.
0 essential relationships / 3 supporting plants
Host/specialist links: 0
Forage/pollination links: 2
Shelter links: 1
Relationship roles: 2
Ponderosa pine
Supporting / Foliage plants
Gleans insects from the foliage year-round and takes conifer seed, caching it into bark crevices and needle clusters to recover later.
White fir
Supporting / Foliage plants
A year-round forager in true-fir foliage, gleaning insects from the needles and caching conifer seed into bark crevices for the winter.
Rocky Mountain juniper
Supporting / Shelter plants
The Wildflower Center documents the tree as providing nesting sites and cover; mountain chickadee is the western montane cavity-nester most likely to use it, and dense juniper foliage is real thermal cover on exposed foothill ground. The shelter function is documented, the specific bird is inference.
Plants in the catalog
Foliage plants · 5
Works the foliage for insects through the whole year, and caches conifer seed into bark crevices to recover from memory later in the winter.
A year-round forager in true-fir foliage across the interior range, gleaning insects from the needles and caching conifer seed into bark crevices for winter. Note that the bird most associated with grand fir - the pileated woodpecker, which works these rot-cored trunks for carpenter ants and excavates the big nest holes in them - has no entry in this wildlife catalog and so is named here rather than wired as a relationship, as is the black bear that shelters in the hollow cores those cavities open up.
Gleans insects from the foliage year-round and takes conifer seed, caching it into bark crevices and needle clusters to recover later.
A year-round forager in high-elevation conifer foliage, gleaning insects and spiders from fir needles and caching conifer seed into bark crevices against the winter. The dense, branched-to-the-ground crown of subalpine fir gives it both the foraging surface and the shelter in the same tree.
A year-round forager in true-fir foliage, gleaning insects from the needles and caching conifer seed into bark crevices for the winter.
Shelter plants · 1
The Wildflower Center documents the tree as providing nesting sites and cover; mountain chickadee is the western montane cavity-nester most likely to use it, and dense juniper foliage is real thermal cover on exposed foothill ground. The shelter function is documented, the specific bird is inference.
Range
Resident in the mountains of western North America, from interior British Columbia and Alberta south through the Rockies, Great Basin, and Sierra Nevada to Baja California, mostly in ponderosa pine, Douglas-fir, true fir, and lodgepole forest. Some birds move downslope in hard winters.
Sources & citations
Cite this page
Use this citation for the Plotwright wildlife record. Use the source cards below to explore the references that informed its taxonomy, range, conservation, host plants, foraging, and habitat.
Plotwright. (n.d.). Mountain chickadee (Poecile gambeli). Retrieved 2026, August 20, from https://plotwright.com/wildlife/mountain-chickadee
Sources used for this record
This record is compiled from the sources below.
Cornell Lab All About Birds: Mountain Chickadee
Species account for the montane conifer habitat, year-round foliage gleaning, seed caching and recovery, and cavity nesting.
GBIF: Poecile gambeli
GBIF backbone key 2487825 is an exact accepted match for Poecile gambeli in family Paridae.
iNaturalist: Poecile gambeli
iNaturalist taxon 144816 is the active species record with community observation range data.
Wikipedia: Mountain chickadee
Corroborating reference for the white eyebrow field mark, the conifer associations, and food caching.